US warned of retaliation

Published November 16, 2002

LOS ANGELES, Nov 15: Mir Aimal Kasi, just a few hours before execution, had warned the US of severe retaliation after his death.

In an exclusive interview on Thursday from his death cell to WTTG channel in Virginia, Kasi said: “I was really angry with the policy of the US government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people.

“In Pakistan, a lot of people like me. So I believe there will be big chances for retaliation against Americans there. But, personally, I don’t encourage anyone to attack Americans,” he said.

Asad Hayauddin, press attache in the embassy of Pakistan, said Kasi’s two brothers had met embassy officials last week and asked for its support to spare Kasi’s life. The embassy then wrote a letter to the Virginia governor seeking, on humanitarian grounds, a stay of execution.

“We endorse the clemency request of the Kasi family,” Hayauddin said.

Kasi is the fourth person who was executed in Virginia this year. He went on a 1993 shooting rampage outside the CIA headquarters — an attack he said was motivated by his anger toward Washington’s Middle East policies.

He was convicted in 1997 of the killings of two CIA employees — Frank Darling, 28, and Lansing Bennett, 66 — as they sat in their cars in morning traffic outside the CIA headquarters. Three other CIA employees, all in separate cars, were wounded in the attack.

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